Ok so what about things like interlaced and progressive footage? Do I still need to correct that?

Or fixing the resolution from 720x480 to 848x480?

Or fixing things like rainbowing, dot crawl, or noise?

Everything should be the same, the actual technology behind video isn't different. The only thing I would AVOID would be spatial smoothers for cleaning footage. Personally I prefer mvtools and mdegrain2 for cleaning footage, but that filter is rather slow unless you are using multi-threaded avisynth.

Ok so what about things like interlaced and progressive footage? Do I still need to correct that?

Or fixing the resolution from 720x480 to 848x480?

Or fixing things like rainbowing, dot crawl, or noise?

Everything should be the same, the actual technology behind video isn't different. The only thing I would AVOID would be spatial smoothers for cleaning footage. Personally I prefer mvtools and mdegrain2 for cleaning footage, but that filter is rather slow unless you are using multi-threaded avisynth.

I've never used mvtools or mdegrain2, these are the kinds of filters I usually use.

I wouldn't use fastlinedarkenmod(), as it's really intended for animation. You may also wan to cut back on the LSFmod strength, but aside from that most of those should be fine to use. Filters are really all about trial and error and learning what "looks good" when you are trying to clean up footage.

So another thing I'm having trouble with, is I want to use the audio from the show, which I've rarely done, but the audio is in a separate ac3 file.

When I create the avi file, I'm converting the show from 29.97 fps to 23.976 fps, but the ac3 audio is still set to 29.97. So nothing matches up, if I sync one portion of it, down the line its way off.

There used to be a handy tool that was included with the amvapp called BeSweet that did this sort of thing... AFAIK it wasn't windows 7 compatible and it kinda disappeared. There might be a way to process it in VLC of all things.

BasharOfTheAges wrote:There used to be a handy tool that was included with the amvapp called BeSweet that did this sort of thing... AFAIK it wasn't windows 7 compatible and it kinda disappeared. There might be a way to process it in VLC of all things.

Well if anyone knows specifically how, that would be amazing.

Otherwise I'm going to have to sync every little piece I want to use which will be insanely time consuming.

HOW are you bringing it from 29.97 to 23.976? I assume you want to do that because the show is telecined and thus want to IVTC but in that case the duration (and thus sync) will be identical. If you are changing the speed of the show with something like assumefps then be aware that the difference is HUGE from 29.97 to 23.976, it's a very noticeable slowdown. BeSweet was for 23.976 to 24.00 fps changes, which are almost unnoticeable. For that kind of audio editing, avisynth's TimeStretch works fine.That said, I'm not sure what framerate Dexter is shot at since I never checked it out (personally I'm not really into live action shows). If it's shoot at 23.976 then yes you want to IVTC. However, if it was shot at actual 29.97 or even 60i, why would you want to slow it down? The motion will be unnaturally slow, and you'll miss out on a lot of easier sync and smoother motion.

Which is where I've learned everything about ripping footage, the process I go through always changes the footage from 29.97 (which is regular DVD fps) to 23.976. Maybe I've just never had to deal with it in AMV's because you typically don't use the source audio there, but thats always been the process I've gone through?

I can't remember if the change happens when the d2v file is created or when I run it in virtualdub to create the avi, but its one of those two. There's nothing in my avisynth script that is changing the framerate, thats for sure.

You can't go and randomly change the framerate of your source without a valid reason to... you have to make sure what the framerate of your source is first and foremost. Unfortunately the avtech has never been clear in how to understand what you have on your hands in terms of non-soft pulldown.

First thing is, in dgindex you should be doing "Honor Pulldown Flags" as the "Field Operation" under "Video", then you let it index, and then you check what the info is reporting. If it comes out with a very high FILM percentage (say, roughly 95% and up? Ideally even more, though), then you can go and reindex it with "Forced Film" as the selected operation. Otherwise you should keep what you have and then check if your footage is actually 60i or a 2:3 pulldown.Since dexter is a live action source, it should be easy to find a good scene for checking this out; for anime this can mostly be done by checking pans and such highly animated scenes. The gist is that, if you have a 2:3 source, which is what you want to IVTC, you should be noticing a pattern of 3 progressive frames and 2 interlaced frames. This pattern of 5 frames should be constant in at least a whole scene (and like I said, it's quite easy to understand with live action footage). If all frames appear to be progressive or if all frames appear to be interlaced, then you don't have to IVTC; rather, in the first case you have a 29.97 progressive source, in the latter a 59.94 interlaced source. In the latter case you can choose to either discard a field of the two and edit at 29.97 progressive, or keep the bobbed deinterlace and edit 59.94 progressive (nowadays you always want to resort to QTGMC for your deinterlacing needs since how high quality it is).In the case your source is a 2:3 pulldown, however, you WILL want to IVTC (and thus bring to 23.976). You can do this by doing even a simple chain such as tfm().tdecimate() really (the results won't be absolutely perfect, but still good enough; especially with live action it should be easy enough for tfm and tdecimate not to get the patterns wrong since there's not the issue of having footage animated at an "actual" framerate lower than the "nominal" framerate), and the audio will keep in sync with what you have.

If you still are uncertain of what you have at hand, posting a sample m2v (you can make a small one by using the [ and ] buttons in DGIndex and then selecting "File" > "Save Project and Demux Video") will help us help you help us all.

Dext3r wrote:So another thing I'm having trouble with, is I want to use the audio from the show, which I've rarely done, but the audio is in a separate ac3 file.

When I create the avi file, I'm converting the show from 29.97 fps to 23.976 fps, but the ac3 audio is still set to 29.97. So nothing matches up, if I sync one portion of it, down the line its way off.

Does anyone have a good idea of how to approach this?

Oh fun, it's one of THOSE sources...I've dealt with this before...please post the exact framerate the audio is showing up as in virtualdub.